Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

vulgar, the clowns and the fops, the Russians of every class consent to let such things quietly go on in their presence, without troubling themselves about their legality. Elsewhere, the citizen is protected by the whole community against the agent of unjust power; here, the public agent is protected against the just accusations of the injured individual. The serf never accuses.

The Emperor Nicholas has made a code ! If the facts I have related are in accordance with the laws of this code so much the worse for the legislator; if they are illegal, so much the worse for the administrator of the law. The Emperor is, in both cases, responsible. "What a misfortune to be no more than a man in accepting the office of a god, and yet to be forced to accept it! Absolute government should be confided only to angels.

I pledge myself to the accuracy of the facts that are here related. I have neither added nor retrenched one circumstance in the recital, and I recount it while the slightest features of the scene continue present to my mind. *

If such details could be published at Petersburg, with the commentaries indispensable to make them noticed by minds inured to all kinds of brutality and injustice, they would not effect the good that might be expected. The Russian administration would so order matters, that the police of Petersburg should henceforth seem to be more mild in its treatment of the people, were it only out of respect for the

* It may not be useless to repeat that this chapter, like almost all the others, was preserved and concealed with care during my sojourn in Russia.